Wednesday, 18 January 2017

It's possible that you might read positive things about the latest Jobs Report from the UK's Office for National Statistics, mostly covering the three months September to November 2016, which was published earlier today. If so, here is a cautionary note:

The UK labour market showed clear signs of a modest
slowdown toward the end of 2016 with the precarious workforce of temps,
part-time employees and full-time self-employed bearing the brunt as businesses
responded to economic uncertainty following the Brexit vote. The total number
of people in work fell by 9,000 in the three months to November but this
includes much bigger falls in the number of full-time self-employed (down
49,000), part-time employees (down 60,000) and temps (down 35,000). Although
part-time self-employment increased (up 31,000) this is likely to be due to more
under-employment among the self-employed unable to find enough hours of work.
Only a sharp rise of 143,000 in the number of economically inactive people
prevents the weaker jobs numbers from showing up as higher unemployment, the
number of jobless people actively seeking work in fact falling by 52,000. Don’t
be fooled, therefore, by apparently good headline news of falling unemployment and higher nominal
wage growth (up to 2.7% excluding bonuses), the jobs market is at present
slowing not growing, as those in precarious work know only too well.